Demons
by Shadow minx
Summary: Edward has had the call so many times he almost isn't surprised anymore. He wants to hide the truth. He wants to shelter him. But with the beast inside. There's nowhere he can hide. One-shot. Based on Demons by Imagine Dragons.


**Authors note: this a scene that came to me when i was in the shower listening to Demons by Imagine Dragons. So I thought I'd write it. It's short but i figured it was better off on here for anyone to read rather than just gathering dust on my hard drive.**

 **I hope you enjoy this little one shot. Your thoughts are always appreciated! Happy reading :)**

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How many times could I go through this? How many more times could I bare to receive that phone call? How many times would I sit all night by his bedside waiting for him to wake up, just to storm out as soon as his eyes opened?

Question after question swirled through my brain as I stood staring at a brick wall, unable to bring myself to look at him. I knew he was lying there, his chest riding and falling, his face pale and sunken. But I could not look. Not again.

There's nothing I haven't tried, nothing I haven't done form him but again and again he ends up here. Lying in a hospital bed with a Naloxone drip in his arm because he still hasn't gotten it into his thick head that too much heroin stops you breathing.

I could feel the anger bubbling inside me.

He'd been to rehab, god knows he went to the best, but still six months later here I was. And then three months after that, then two. I don't know how many times.

I don't know how many lies I'd had to tell for him. How much longer could I keep this from our parents? They thought the rehab had worked. Suddenly an image of their faces flashed across my vision, it was the last time they had been where I was standing, there faces twisted in anguish because their junkie son had nearly killed himself again.

I couldn't tell them; I couldn't see that look on their faces' again.

"Why are you here?" I strangled voice called out in the dark.

Without turning to look, I said, "Because you still haven't removed me as your emergency contact." That words rang coldly around the room and several minutes elapsed before he answered.

"Why did you come?"

I snorted, "because this time you really could have managed to kill yourself and I would have to take your body back home."

"Don't be dramatic Edward," He scoffed. "I'm not trying to kill myself."

"Well you could have fooled me."

Silence fell again. I considered just walking out, he was alive, I wasn't needed to arrange a funeral so there wasn't any reason to stick around. But for some reason this time I couldn't bring myself to move. I don't know why; I'd left him barely conscious in a hospital bed loads of times before. But this time I just stood there, staring out the window.

Frustration starting building inside me, the beast ranging and tearing at my insides. The feeling was rising, building stronger and stronger until finally I lashed out. Before I knew what I was doing my right hand was scrunched into a fist and my arm was swinging with all my mite at the sold wall before me.

"God damn it Jasper!" I burst out as pain shot through my hand. "I can't keep watching you waste your life away; I can sit there with my daughter in my arms knowing her uncle is out there shooting up. I can't get that call again, because every time I think I'll be driving to identify your corpse. Jasper get help, please, I'm begging you."

"Help didn't work." His voice was despondent, void of the brother I knew and loved, the brother I hadn't met in a long long time.

"Well maybe this time it will." I pleaded.

"It won't." He whispered.

"Jasper I want to help you! I want to protect you, you're my little brother for Christ's sake, I can't keep you safe when you're the one doing the damage. But Jasper, I can't keep lying for you." I could feel tears welling behind my eyes. I couldn't have said if they were tears of rage or sadness.

"Then don't. I don't need you lying for me." He spat at me. "This is who I am," He gestured down to the track marks scaring his arms. "I'm not hiding it, you're the one who's ashamed of me."

"What?" I recoiled. "I'm not ashamed of you Jasper but it would tear Mom and Dad apart if they knew you were still doing this to yourself, you know it would." He stayed silent, staring at me with a tight look on his face. "The help could work." I whispered.

"Will _'the help'_ bring her back?" He sneered, anger was unmistakable on his pale face. "Will _'the help'_ give me back what I could have had, what I lost forever the night I lost her? Can you really tell me you wouldn't be where I am if it had been Bella that night? Can you look me in the eye and tell me this isn't what you would want if you didn't have her? Can you…" His words cut off as his voice became strangled and even in the low light I could see the tears rolling down his face.

"This isn't what she would want." I said softly.

"Yeah," He replied. "She'd want to be alive."

I didn't say anymore. His tone was final and I knew there would be no more words spoken between us tonight. I knew I wouldn't see him again until the next phone call from the next emergency department. I knew one of those times he wouldn't be alive when I got there. And deep deep down I knew, that's exactly what he wanted.


End file.
